A little work on desensitizing to showers. I don't bathe the miss often, but I want her to be comfortable with it for the times when we need it. In less than an hour we went from a mildly aversive tub to being relaxed and comfortable as she voluntarily gets in or out of a running shower now.

New True Facts : www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq9J...

🎉 Thrilled to announce our new paper in the Journal of Sex Research! "Exploring Sexual Attraction to Animals: A Qualitative Analysis of Zoophile Experiences" One of the largest qualitative studies on this topic, with 960 participants sharing their experiences. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

A sticker spotted in Chicago's Green Mill bathroom.

While some think cross species mating is "unnatural", there's an entire reproductive strategy known as gynogenesis where females can mate with a males of another species to kick off embryo development, but he provides no genetics. A natural and reproductive necessity of cross species mating.

The fear and unease that comes from finding a lump on your companions and having to wait for cytology results exists in inverse proportion to the relief of finding it is nothing of concern. I have nothing to report and I am overjoyed by that fact.

I recently finished reading "Problem Animal Behavior: Functional Assessment & Constructional Contingency Management Planning" and as expected from O'Heare it was informative, incredibly dense, and dryer than the Gobi desert. Not for light reading, that's for sure, but covered the subject well.

There's few things I love more than seeing a sleeping dog wagging their tail. Who are you happy to see buddy?

I find it interesting that for many people if they were offered $100 to read a book about dog care they would jump at the chance, but if that same book could instead save them $2000 in unnecessary expenses it isn't nearly as motivating.

vigilantism isn't brave or helpful. i know that showing compassion for someone you believe has committed wrongs in the past is harder than giving in to your emotions and thinking of ways to punish them, but punishment won't help make anything better in the long run.

Finished reading "Cooperative Care: Seven Steps to Stress-Free Husbandry". Neither myself nor my dog are new to this so the book didn't offer anything new. It gave me a few things to think about such as some handling that I should be doing more often, so I'm training myself to do that more often.

Requesting info on resolving fireworks/loud noise fears in dogs. Not dealing with it myself, but looking to update my understanding to pass on. I appreciate your reading recommendations and your thoughts. I am familiar with the processes of DR wrt desensitization/counter conditioning.

A repeat of a previous event where we bought various brands of vegan "chicken" nuggets, we bought 5 brands and had blind taste test with friends. Each person ranked them in order, scores totaled, and here are the results. By score, Morning Star Chik'n Nuggets came in first.

Regardless of species, so long as nobody is harmed what consenting adults do with each other in private is none of anyone else's business.

I got into a somewhat heated discussion with another zoo who took offense to my statement that punishment was a terrible tool. The specific part that seems to have upset them was my statement that prong and choke collars should not be used, a statement I wholeheartedly maintain.

I've talked about this before, but is again on my mind; it feels like so many others never clear their dog's bowls? It would seem clean bowls are somehow magically unimportant because *dog* and yet if I handed them food on a dirty plate I bet it would be objectionable. Bacteria still exist.

I am once again let down by my community where the seeming majority feel that calling for murdering others is acceptable. If your only solution is to murder people, you are part of the problem. Strange that "do not hang around with people who want to murder others" is apparently too much.

I don’t want to be part of platforms that have no ethical stance, no position on human rights, that use the DMCA to justify not policing piracy, that use ‘free speech’ as a way to wash their hands from hate and disinformation.

There seems to be a trend here where the platform is complicit in allowing hate groups to remove members of minority groups based on very specious reasoning. I can appreciate being proactive, but I think there is a responsibility to discern between what is actually harmful and what is unpopular.

I guess it's time to poke at things that make people uncomfortable. Many have a knee jerk reaction that zoophilia is by definition harmful. Like any interaction between living beings it can be, but it doesn't have to be. Link below to peer reviewed article that challenged some of my ideas about it.

I struggle to understand how people who are members of a hated minority can somehow fail to learn a lesson from it and just go on to espouse hate and violence for others.

It's the end of the year again and it's time to talk about dying again. Even if you do nothing else, get the contact info for people you would trust to take care of your companions and make sure whomever will likely be dealing with what's left knows this exists and where to find it.

It's been a whie since I posted about any books..... I recently finished "Decoding your Dog". It's not often that I read a book and find a new favorite to recommend, but this one managed it. Written by veterinary behaviorists to help you have a better relationship with your companions.

I'm still terrible at this sort of platform, but a first post can be short, right? Hi, it's me the Central Scrutinizer. Wait, that's someone else, it's Emmanuel Goldstein. You might recognize me from other places. I'll try to be somewhat active here, we'll see how it goes.